Pedometer and the art of walking!

2 weeks and counting!! My my, sometimes I feel I am the busiest person on this planet! Can you imagine I could not take out 10 minutes in 2 weeks to write something over here? That reminds me, I have started a course on "Time Mismanagement". If you wanna join come to my place on Mondays 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM. But then, it might start late, or get canceled (that was a poor joke, I bet most of you didn't understand :) !!)

Well well, (poor) jokes apart, I have been sporting a rather snazzy little gizmo for the entire of last week and I thought I let ya guys know about it. Its a small device that I clip to my belt (or rather it gets squeezed and gasps for breath between my stomach and my hip) and its called a pedometer. Now there are two parts to this story, and I have neatly divided it into two parts, so read on..

Part 1: How I procured the pedometer?
I have a sweet friend, Nidhi, who happened to go to a women's health seminar and like all seminars *collected* a few goodies on her way back. I happened to visit her cubicle one day and instantly recognized that one of her goodies was a pedometer (yippee!!). When you are a kid and all rolly polly, you just have to stand in front of someone put your hands on your cheeks roll yourself around and say "Can I take this please?", and you look so cute that the unsuspecting adult falls prey to your trick (shooo shweet!!). I happen to still use this trick at times, and I for one still succeed :P (may be the scene looks so gross, that the adult in question can't stand it any longer :P !) !!

In this context, I would like to put forward a new theory. "The chubbier you are as a kid, the fatter you become as an adult", a corollary that you can obviously derive from this statement is "The cuter you are as a kid, the uglier you become as an adult" :) !! I for one, now don't want any chubby and cute kids (see I care so much for their well being!). When I was a kid, I was an instant hit with all the *elder* gals around me, and now .. ahem, I don't even wanna talk about it :) !!

All said and done, I procured the pedometer by hook or by crook, and have been sporting it on my belt ever since!

Part 2: How the pedometer works?
Well, I wont get into the nitty grittys of the whole mechanism, but to put it in one sentence, the pedometer counts the number of times the body vibrates when you walk. For an average human being, one step equals one vibration.

So, I started proudly wearing the pedometer and would read it every once a while to see the steps that I walked. I was kinda amazed by the number of steps I took , with me hitting 100 steps in less than 30 seconds! Just to test the accuracy of it, I measured the steps before and after I took a single step, and it gave me a reading of 6!! Now, that was weird!!

Off I went on a quest for self discovery and here is what I concluded. Viscous solids produce something called damped waves. Fat is a viscous solid, so when it is subject to motion, it produces damped waves. In layman's terms, every step I take my body vibrates a lot more than it should, thanks to damped waves in my fat :) !!! Well, I understand that that was the most complex joke I ever cracked :) !! If you take a slow motion video of me, when I am walking you will see my whole body shaking off centered like it happens to the jaw of a bad guy when the hero hits him in slow motion :) !! I bet I am boosting your visualization!!

That's it from me, adios amigos until my next post :) !!

Agreement

After years of fighting in vain to get rid of my bulge (tummy for you uninitiated!), yesterday night we ( I mean my stomach and me) signed a strategic agreement. Its a 54 page document on which both of our lawyers agreed upon. Here is a gist of the deal:

1. I shall not do any more ab exercises. These exercises prove harmful to the growth of Mr. T (for tummy!).
2. I shall not restrict food intake. It directly affects the well being of Mr. T. By the power vested in Mr. T by the constitution, it is illegal on my part to do so.
3. Mr. T has agreed to deposit all the fat that I shall consume. This way, if I get stranded in the Sahara desert someday, Mr. T will take care of my well being, till help arrives.
   
4. Mr. T shall cushion my fall, if I trip or lose balance. Mr. T will that way protect my face and keep me away from harm, risking its own life.

This strategic agreement will also help me in a lot more ways than you can imagine. First of all, I will be able to concentrate on other things in life than appearance. After all, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and if some gal is gonna like me, she ain't gonna see if I walk alone or I am always accompanied by Mr.T. Imagine, if I save those 2 minutes that I spend looking at myself in the mirror everyday, at the end of the year I will have saved 12 hours!! I could probably end poverty in the world in that time!

Finally, whenever I have kids, they shall get to have a front seat view of the action. Let me explain. All the thin guy carry their kids in their arms. So when the dad is walking ahead, the kid is actually looking at a stranger following his/her dad and making strange faces (and for all you know, that guy actually thinks that he is entertaining the kid! Oh! How boring!). My kids will sit on Mr. T. So they will have front row action! They will see what I will see, how exciting!!

That reminds me of a joke that I had read somewhere..

Why can't fat men play golf?
Because if they keep the ball too close, they can't see it and if they keep it too far, they can't reach it :) !!

I am gonna end this post right now. I guess something someone said yesterday, hurt me a lot :) !!

Tips for people like me!

Breaking my pledge of writing a blog once every week, here I am sharing something useful that I came across on the big bad world of the internet a few weeks back. Well, its a compilation of articles that help you to get over your habit of procrastination (I had this article lying in my del.icio.us for 2 weeks, before I read it :P).

Let me warn you, its exclusively meant for people like me, so if you are that organized person who knows which trousers you are going to wear on the 3rd Saturday of next month, its not for you..

Also there are some very useful articles about how you can get more organized in life. That reminds me, getting organized is NOT buying a Palm PDA. I have a Palm, but then to get organized, you also need to use it :) !! All said and done, here is the link to the article..

http://www.lifeorganizers.com/home/

Love and Betrayal

I bet my topic got you all thinking! Well I was going to add "sex" somewhere in the title too, cause I had heard that it sells. But then, I ain't selling anything out here, so kinda refrained from using that word :) !!

I don't intend to write a sleazy blog but I just thought I voice my opinion about this thought that has been tossing and turning me for the entire of my last weekend. Well, for most of you I know, this would come as a shock, but I am happily committed to this certain someone whom I met (and subsequently moved in with!) for the past 6 months of my life. I occasionally did glance at others here and there, but have been pretty much committed to her.

But last weekend, I did something terrible. I had to drive down to some place 400 miles from my home and since I care for her so much didn't want her to make that journey (It would be too tiring for her!). I ended up asking someone else to accompany me, and that is where the betrayal started :( !!

For you guys who couldn't make out anything, well I am talking about the Ford Mustang that I rented last week. Now, I am pretty much committed (shall I say am in love?) to my Civic, but the moment I lay my eyes on the Mustang, I could feel myself go weak in my knees.. Civic is certainly adorable and cute, but the Mustang has that nasty look which kinda says that "I wanna be punished" :) The heart pounding roar she gives when you step onto her gas peddle is something out of this world!! And then it was two days and 800 miles of a torrid love affair with a Mustang. But then, as if to punish me, on my way back, the fuel tank of the Mustang started misbehaving, and I started wishing I had got my Civic along with :) !!

Now, I have exactly understood why guys betray. They just go by external appearance and have no regards for feelings. This post was mainly written for me to come over my guilt :P !! I am trying to convince myself that I rented the Mustang, just because I loved my Civic and didn't want her to go so many miles. I hope you agree too ;) !!!

Burp..

I have kept a personal deadline of writing a blog every week. Now my days go so fast, that before I realize; its already a week since I have written something and there is no new idea in my half-asleep brain.

Nothing much happened in my life last week, except for the fact that I put in 12 hours of work everyday! Yupp, work is like a never ending saga for me, the faster I try to finish it, more work gets piled up. But yet, my spirits were high throughout the week. Wonder why??

Well it all started a year back when a colleague of mine became a happy father! So, one year later he celebrated his daughter's first birthday! (Ahem, I understand that it makes no sense yet!). And he threw a big party for all of us. But as most of you know, last weekend was Diwali and many people didn't make it to his party. That made his estimates all go wrong, and he was left with a LOT of food.

Obvious choice to give away all that festive food was of course "we the bachelors". Yippee, the sight of soo much "fresh" food in our refrigerators made me and my roomies feel like millionaires. We had a ceremony in which we garlanded the refrigerator, stripped down to our bare essentials and danced around it. The fridge was our new God :)!! Economics always told me that food, water and clothing are our fundamental necessities and we just had enuf to fulfill one of them for a week!!

So we ate and then we ate and then we ate again. We ate the same food for breakfast, lunch, supper and dinner! (And in my dream, I again floated to the fridge and ate the same food :P !!) You would have never seen some one soo content with life! And finally after 4 days and 8 meals we saw the last of our love, our life disappear :( !! Sob .. Sob.. It was famine at our place again.

Then came Friday evening and two of my very sweet friends called all of us for dinner. And yippee, food was left again!! So 4 more days of absolute bliss :) !!!

I am still reeling under the after effects of sumptuous meals that I had last week. Well well, I have just changed my definition of "happiness". Its that state in a bachelor's life where he has access to "unlimited supply of food" in his refrigerator!

I know I sound like a scavenger .. burp... but I am not complaining :) !!

Reality check

Am I really busy or am I just pretending to be? Ahem, that's a difficult question, but the truth is, I haven't had (or made) the time to update my blog for the entire of last week. Living up to my procrastinating standards like always :) !!

Just came online to tell you guys that I am alive and kicking but my gray cells are sleeping. Coffee doesn't wake them up any longer. I have taken up some new responsibilities (willingly or unwillingly, I know naught!) and they are keeping me busy. Can you imagine, I haven't had the time to even read Dilbert today :(??!!

So while I sleep, let me give you a dose of some very cool stuff.

For your entertainment let me present you a video that I really like.. Here is YouTube in all its glory:

Names

This is the second week of my tryst with common cold and I thought I look it up on the net. And according to Wikipedia common cold is Acute viral nasopharyngitis. Wow! And for a moment I thought only South Indians had long names! That's a long name for a virus to carry around, considering that the moment I sneeze, I banish millions of them from their nasal-abode! Imagine the inconvenience of carrying your long nameplate along with the rest of your belongings when you are only 1 cell wide! I bet I can fit a billion of them in the space that their name occupied in this blog :) !! Before I start talking yucky about mucus and the rest, let me get back to the original topic "Names".

I was born with a long last name. I have never liked my last name (see its conspicuous absence in the "About Me" section of my blog :) !!). It is long and complicated and has 'U's and 'Z's to complicate its pronunciation further! The friendly lady at the Safeway counter always reads my receipt and mutters "Have a nice day! Mr Moo-zooo-mu-daarrr?" and then she has that pitiable look on her face saying "I am sorry Mr, but my boss says that I have to wish everyone with their last names!, not that I am interested in wishing you!"

When I was a teenager and had to come up with a signature (remember the good old days when you practiced and perfected your signature by scribbling it anywhere you could?) I had a tough time getting my last name inside my signature. I thought I would grow up to be a celebrity. How embarrassing it would be to stand and sign for 15 minutes for 1 fan, when you can see hundred thousand other fans yelling your name ("Moo-zooom-mu-daarrr! Moo-zooom-mu-daarrr!") That reminds me, if I write my entire name I need to refill my ink pen before I can sign again :) !!

After a lot of deliberation and studying the aesthetics of my signature, I decided that I shall get rid of the 'z' and the 'u', so all I was left with was lots of 'm'. This I decided was the best way to scribble my autograph on my fans hands, books and places where only I imagined ;) !! But as God would have it, He got angry with me for playing with my family heritage, and here I am, a lowly Software Engineer writing blogs for you unsuspecting souls!

If only I had not messed around with my last name, by His grace, you would have been standing in a long queue somewhere to get to see me! And the entire police department of that county would be out to keep the crowd in control :P !!

Obituary

Today the 10th of October 2006 my dear Coffee Mug of 1.5 years left for its heavenly abode at 6:30 AM in the morning. It is survived by 4 of its other mates. The last rites were given by sweeping the floor and then throwing away the rest of the stuff in the dustbin! May his/her (never thought about a Coffee Mug's sex!) soul rest in pieces.

I am very sad today, and I thought I pay homage to this brave cup (which survived through chai and coffee with me for soo long!) by writing a blog about it. I stood for 2 minutes in silence for the Mug, and I got late to office (can you come up with a more amazing excuse than this?)!

Saturday and Sunday mornings would never be the same again for me! Me and my faithful Mug have spent many a weekend mornings reading newspapers, talking on the phone, and last but not the least, me dipping the delicious piece of toast in the hot chai that the Mug so fondly held.

As Toni Braxton would like to put it..

Un-break my Mug, say you'll love me again...
Un-cry these tears, I cried so many nights!

You are the reason nothing gets done!

Another week goes, and I don't get my stuff done! I am so damn busy (or think I am!) that I do not get 15 minutes to update my blog! I have this to-do list which just keeps on extending, I have so many unread emails that I need to respond to, billion other small things that I need to do and I realize I am in no control of my life.

And then I come across this small video on YouTube and I get enlightened! I am the reason I did not get my stuff done :(! Yes get in control before you are too late!

Well here is the video:

Cleaning up my closet

Its a sleepy Sunday evening after a hard day at "partying" and I am playing catch-up on my blog writing business. Its been almost a week since I last wrote and like each one of you, even my time flies in a jiffy...

I was thinking to myself, what is that one thing most important that I did today, and for a change, I actually did something which terribly inconvenienced a few billion happily leaving organisms and their families. Before you get all the wrong ideas, ahem, let me explain!

For those of you who do not know, I live in a "bachelor" accommodation. Its a place which unmarried guys call their "home", but its more like a breeding ground for new kinds of mutated organisms. You have got all kinds of things lying around, and there are more kinds of things hidden beneath those things. Everything in the house looks brown, because there is this layer of dust that gives it that color!

Well, I am a bit of a cleanliness freak, and this bachelor business (with all due respect to my amazingly sweet and nice roommates!) does get over my nerves at times. I try to do my part by getting up insanely early (read 7:30 AM) on a Saturday morning (its insane cause you have slept only at 3:30 AM ..) and try to salvage our apartment. But then I can go only 1 room at a time, cause I need to excavate through layers of dirt (pun intended) to get down to the bottom and figure out what treasures are actually hidden!!

All said and done, today I finally reached the most amazing inventions of all times .. the Fridge. The problem with having a Fridge at home is you tend to stock up on things and try to save them for a rainy day. But then it happens that one fine day you happen to open the fridge and find out that the chicken that your grandma had cooked when she had gone to the hospital to see the new born you, is still there. The chicken is now happily sleeping under a comforter of green yucky things .. I wont be shocked to see it move... (I understand that it was an obvious exaggeration, but I did find some things in my Fridge that had crossed 6 months after their "best if consumed by" dates!).

The most amazing things that I found today were 6 half cut onions, a garlic which had grown a three feet sapling outta it, and 3 unidentified containers which contained something which was completely covered in green and white. I didn't have the guts to go beneath the surface and see what was lurking inside. But I am sure, all the new species of animals are born this way.

I hope that you guys, by now, have figured out that I have a penchant for exaggeration, and whatever I have written above is not true. But, before I end, I would like you all to come for dinner to my place tomorrow (I don't like to throw away food, you see ;) !!!)